1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to data center networks and, more particularly, to risk mitigation in data center networks using virtual machine sharing.
2. Description of the Related Art
As more applications and workloads are moving to online network computing resources, also generally referred to as ‘the cloud’, geographically distributed data centers (DCs) are being deployed across wide-area networks, including optical networks. Such data centers may provide various instances of virtual machines (VMs) that may individually instantiate a computing environment, such as a server operating system, for example. Cloud applications may rely on distributed DCs for improved user experience. However, some cloud service providers may not own optical network infrastructure and may count on network providers to optically interconnect distributed DCs. Some network providers may be unwilling and/or unable to expose their full network topology information to cloud service providers.
Many cloud applications in distributed DCs are arranged in an aggregation communication pattern, whereby an aggregation DC collects data processed at distributed DCs and outputs final results to users. Cloud applications can make physically dispersed VMs operate logically as one DC by collecting results from dispersed VMs at an aggregation DC. Other applications, such as cloud search and data backup, for example, can allocate VMs close to data stored in distributed DCs and provide results at an aggregation DC for access by users. In certain instances, complicated communication patterns can be constituted by scheduling a sequence of data aggregations.
Due to the reliance on distributed DCs and aggregation DCs, survivability in the face of various risks, such as network outages, DC failure(s), and/or equipment failure, among other examples, is becoming an important issue for cloud applications. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an overlay framework that enables cloud service providers to control cloud network connections and optimize resource orchestration, yet enables network operators to offer network services while retaining detailed network topology information.